When universal mantra is integration,synergy,co operation, here we have people wanting to run away! Run away from what? Costs?
Many in Asia were quoting EU as the idea whose time had come.But now we have this "In & Out" - God save the queen.

Fight with the Finns, the Dutch, the Germans, Italians and even the Spaniards (which are due to trade and relations with Latin America more and more for free trade) for a competitive EU. But first you have to fight against your own people nationalism. I always marvel at how the British are fascinated by the past. If the Germans think of the Second World War and the past, it is because they never want to be that way again. The British can not stop to look moronic Second World War movies and so on.

And what, south Americans do not even have a history to look back to…believe me, I respect and know very well the British. In 100 years, they will still stand tall. They have a glorious past and it is correct to look back on it.
Also, don’t apply your economist-reading arrogance that it is ‘just’ the british who wish to leave the euro. Tens of millions of my fellow Italian citizens want to take back our country. Maybe we can make a collaboration with the British.

Brits are forever Eurosceptic because they love whingeing which, nowadays is all they have left to do. But Italians are supposed to have a few grammes more of political nous and, therefore, know well that without the EU keeping in check their corrupt practices & vested interests norn out of indolence, they would go the same way as the morning mist.

Britain has a shameful past. They have invaded more nations than the Nazis. Just in India, which was a vibrant manufacturing hub, they occupied a territory ten times bigger than Poland. Millons of foced workers were sent from one Continent to the other (Indians to places like Fiji, Guyana, South Africa..) and millions of African slaves were sent to the Caribean and North America. Aboriginal Australians were decimated and not recognized as equals until a few decades ago. Native Americans were sent to reservations or killed without mercy. They created long term problems in the Mideast and the Indian Subcontinent which have caused several wars. Britain´s past is really shameful.

I can't work out, Mr. Terranera, if you are for or against your homeland. You are a very confused person. It is funny that you talk about a love of whingeing, everything you post is a complaint. Enjoy your retirement more I suggest.

In the age of war and conquest, any country with the resources, manpower and technological level would do the same. Indeed, Mongol Khanates, Darius' Persians and many Arabians did this at a time in which we Europeans were more or less still tribal. So when it became our turn, it was just bad timing because we were the last peoples to do this kind of thing, so people like you think it was 'just' the British who built an empire by force. Memory should last more than 200 years!
Better to stare at your past, accept the bad and be proud of the good, unlike 2012 Germany where they were taught to whimper and hate themselves.

I might be confused but I see clearly where you come from because, albeit predictably, you turn your response to my comments to a personal context and that reveals your character.
Therefore, sir, you do not merit any further comments from this end.

But you, sir, do merit a commentary: government courses for the long term unemployed are still useful for some inexpensive learning. Marking my comments as racist is, I grant you, novel, but you may want to consider if it were really possible. How about "nationalistic"?

I have NEVER thought that it was a good idea for the UK to join the EU, or to stay in it. Wealth is not created by bureacracies and European bureacracies are particularly stifling. And the social policies of many european countries create large deadweight losses for their economies. The humiliation of being dictated to by the EU simply isn't worth any trade losses - not that there should be any in a freely trading world. But it should be up to a referendum, supported with arguments from both sides, to decide the issue.

Britain signed for free trade and (a bit of) food security when it joined the EC in the 1970's. 40 years on, EC has become a political union moving towards establishing the United States of Europe, encompassing monetary, fiscal, economic, legal, educational, and political integration. That is certainly not what Britain had in mind when it first joined EC.

There is no right or wrong in this. Some countries want closer relationship with each other, and some want to stay independent. Are Norway, Switzerland or Iceland better off staying in or out? If everyone else in the club wants to move closer and Britain doesn't want to move in that direction, Britain should probably leave and re-establish a relationship with EU like that of Switzerland or Norway.

Hi,
The EU came into being when a bunch farmers got together, things moved on to a common market and the Euro. The next step being central management. The EU’s problems came with the Euro a farmers currency made by farmers. The EU’s fragile existence is dependent on economics which again is dependent of the sum of many. We have a situation as for example where intelligence quotient (IQ) is taken as the summation of all individual IQ’s instead of that of an individual. Erosion has occurred by the rating institutions selling AAA’s and thus becoming a measure of fiscal integrity and “lead on the legs of a diver” not taking the social political effect into consideration. The EU as an institution should be measured as a whole in lending , borrowing and debt. The AAA’s must disappear with a return to the market with a “ shylock pound of flesh” being a well understood language. Britain exit from the EU will not change these basic conditions and is far more for cultural reasons.

I am commenting about how Britain's relationship with its mainland neighbours today are miles better than Japan's relationship with ITS mainland neighbours.
I think it is pure lunacy to rescind that relationship Britain has with its Mainland today, knowing how bad the relationship could fall to within a generation's time...

The suggestion that we should wait and see before making our position clear: "what kept us out of the euro" reveals why a British exit from the EU is probably now inevitable. It was not joining the euro that has brought Britain to this crisis. Now even if we stay nominally in the EU, the best the "Economist" offers, we will have effectively left our key partners as they deepen the Eurozone. Just "staying in the Single Market" will not save the City. Only expressing a readiness to join the euro at some, not too distant stage will do that. Unless someone makes the case that we should be like Germany and France, not Bulgaria or Roumania, forget it. The game will be over.

Britain's exit from EU seems a disaster for both Britain and EU. without Britain, the recovery of EU economy will suffer longer time. Britain leaves EU during EU tough time obviously is unwise. British need to re-balance its choice for long term consideration. once it exit from EU, Britain can not enjoy existing economic and political benefits, such as free trade, inter countries tourist, ect. Britain, to some degree, threat EU cut budget which failed several days ago in EU Budget Summit. It's a given that the benefit of Britain's export to EU outweigh what Britain ask for in the EUBS. on the other hand, EU should adopt some new regulations to satisfy its members. according to different country's characteristics make different budget regulations. For example, France and Britain should be totally different in Agriculture Industry Budget. All in all, Britain' development in the future depends on EU as EU's progress depends on Britain.

Many Britons seem to view the EU as some sort of European United States which it is not. It's merely a loose economic federation. Britain gains enormously by being a member and probably could not survive otherwise. There is no suggestion that the British should abandon their national identity or throw away a thousand years of being one of the most progresive peoples in the world.

Anyone who denies that the EU aspires to be a political federation like the US really needs to read more.
No, without a common language there will never be a USE like the USA but a full-fledged political federation is in the works.
Denial on the part of europhile Britons is no longer good enough.

UK's economic crisis is complex in detail, but in general outline it is due to too much socialism, plus fallout from the eurozone mess. Even if UK went strict capitalist, they would have a down period, just due to its trading partners' problems.

The argument against EU is a political one. Brussels is an anti-Western, anti-nationalist, socialistic hectoring institution, which does nothing for Britain, and much to it. Getting out of it enhances the long term prospects for the preservation and esp renewal of British freedoms, including sovereign freedom. I want the US to get out of NAFTA and the UN as well (and boot the UN off US soil).

In historical context, now is really BAD timing for the UK to make any major decisions regarding Europe. After all, the last time Britain made a disastrous and irreparable error in its European policy was in 1938, and the name of the Prime Minister then started with a C and ended with an N too (Chamberlain, instead of Cameron).

The real irony is that, a little over a century ago Britain got involved in a war to save little Belgium (home of the modern-day Eurocrats); and that war opened Pandora's Box in Europe and the world. We are still dealing with the fallout from, and consequences of, that little display of European superiority. And now, Britain might be having second thoughts about the wisdom of having anything to do with anything that has to do with Belgium (Brussels). Oh, the irony is just too rich. This time, though, let the Europeans eat what they have cooked...

@Garaboncias
2012-1914=98 I'd have put it at a little UNDER a century ago... Otherwise I agree with certain degree of Irony.

@Charles Bonham Davy
In 1938 at Munich, Britain essentially walked away from a European Crisis, and the crisis came back with a vengeance less than a year later. I see the latest attempts at Brixit as the moral equivalent of Munich, walking away from another European crisis...